NEW DELHI: Three men who were given death penalty for gang rape and murder of a 19-year-old woman at Chhawla in Delhi in 2012 will walk free after the Supreme Court acquitted them on Monday.
Saying that the prosecution failed to prove charges, a bench of CJI UU Lalit, and Justices SR Bhat and Bela M Trivedi said, “It may be true that if the accused involved in the heinous crime go unpunished or are acquitted, a kind of agony and frustration may be caused to the society in general and to the family of the victim in particular, however the law does not permit the courts to punish the accused on the basis of moral conviction or on suspicion alone.”
Stating that lapses occurred during the trial, the bench said, “It has been noticed from the record that out of the 49 witnesses examined by the prosecution, 10 material witnesses were not cross-examined and many other important witnesses were not adequately cross-examined by the defence counsel.”
The bench added that victim’s parents will be entitled to compensation, if the same has not yet been awarded by Delhi State Legal Services Authority.
The victim’s mutilated body was found in a field with injuries caused by objects ranging from car tools to earthen pots.
A Delhi court in February 2014 convicted three men for raping and killing her and awarded them the death penalty. Three men, Ravi Kumar, Rahul and Vinod were convicted under various charges dealing with kidnapping, rape and murder.
The capital punishment was confirmed by the Delhi High Court on August 26 2014, saying they were "predators" moving on the streets and "were looking for prey".
According to the prosecution, the woman worked in Gurgaon's Cyber City area and belonged to Uttarakhand. She was returning from her workplace and was near her home when the three men abducted her in a car.
When she didn't return home, her parents lodged a missing person report, the prosecution said, adding that the woman's mutilated and decomposing body was found in a village in Rewari, Haryana.
Police arrested the three men involved in the crime and said one of the accused allegedly took revenge after the woman turned down his proposal.